Sunday, July 17, 2005

Fenway Park, July 16th, 2005

Crappy ending tonight. And a rough one yesterday, too. We'll get pat this, and maybe, if we concentrate on it really, really hard, the umps will start watching the games with their eyes in the open position.

When I got to Saturday's game, I realized the tape I bought for my video camera was not with me. I decided I'd just buy one for the concert after the game. And that worked out, since there was no BP at the game, so there wasn't anybody to film.

So we went back into the park for the show, meeting up with multiple bloggers, including Empy and Twitch, and friends. By random chance, the seats Pat & I had for the concert were adjacent to Witch City and her friend's, which we knew going in. So we got to chat with them at the show, after hanging out with Witch and Reb and Reb's two friends during the game.

Here's Wake walking around pre-show. It was very cool to be at Fenway for something besides a game. I spent a lot of time just admiring the park, even though I've been to it so many times. You can see how the bleachers were empty. Only the seats behind the dugout where the stage was were sold.

If you know anything about indie rock, you know there are about a thousand "Ben"s. This one, who opened the show, was Brooklyn's Ben Kweller.

They were building this shelf thing by the Monster. More on this later. Beach balls at Fenway, not out of place for once. (Although, unlike Trupiano, I'm all for them at games, for tradition's sake, if nothing else.)

Mike O'Malley was the emcee. Here he does his impression of Torre walking out to the mound, with Gammons as the pitcher. Dennis Leary was surprise guest. He made up for the fact that Bernie Williams choked and dropped off the bill. Here, Dennis slips us two birds...

before raising them high. He said how cool it was to talk to a Fenway crowd, delighting in the words "yankees blow."Leary says hi to Juliana Hatfield.Juliana plays music with her band. Everybody played a short set, and, for the sake of the "average folk" in attendance, mostly sttuck to mid-tempo numbers. O'Malley does his Dave Wallace impression, here using Wake as a prop.

Lots of stuff was auctioned off to the crowd, including Wake's cleats from that day, Gammons' shirt, box seats with Theo, and Timlin's jersey, which he holds up here.Normally these lights would be on. Have you ever noticed how anything that goes from daylight into night time is usually pretty cool?O'Malley and Wake have just imitated the Bernie & Phyls commercials. Hearing Gammons crooning was mind-blowing. Here he is with his all-star band, which included Tim Wakefield, who would pitch nine the next day.

Wake rocks out w/cowboy hat. While conventional wisdom says he mustn't have been plugged in, I think he was, he just played the same note the whole time.Wake holds cowboy hat with guitar.The "new" Citgo sign shines as the Fenway lights stayed off. They obviously had some of the lights on, just not the outfield ones. This created a cool effect, seeing the outfield dark and the infield lit up.The typewriter (?) has been lowered onto "the shelf." What's going on there?The World Champs banner flying high. And not letting that pesky wind determine which way it wants to aim itself. It doesn't play by their rules any more.Kay Hanley rocks with friends. "The comfort of the knowledge of a rise above the sky butcha hemma hunna humma hana hama butcha humma of the Here and Now..." (90's rock joke). Buffalo Theo.More rocking by our GM.Let's see Cashman make a "rock face."Bronson all by his lonesome plains driftin' self. He did Everlong by the Foo Fighters, Shimmer by Fuel, and Black by Pearl Jam.The Pearl Jam tune featured David Ortiz on sax. Maybe not the real Ortiz, but close.Bronson auctioned off his jersey. "I'll wear it naked in the shower if you want..."Bronson claims that he, his pitching, and his musical stylings are number one.Theo took part in some final auctioning. I felt like I was in Theo's personal poker room or something. He's just pointing into the crowd--"a thousand dollars!" He was auctioning guitar picks he'd signed for 200 a pop. They said they raised a quarter million bucks for charity. Nice.Here a dude rigs up "Skycam," which you're now familiar with if you watched tonight's ESPN game.Skycam.Fountains of Wayne closed out the night. That dude's a good pop song writer. He wrote all the songs for "That Thing You Do." They had a hit called "Radiation Vibe" in, like, '96. Then when "Stacy's Mom" came out recently, they got a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist. But I'd been dying to hear RV again. And they actually played it. They reminded me of this dude Damien Pratt, who, at shows, will bust into Blue Oyster Cult songs, and do these cheesy classic rock medlies. Fountains of Wayne didn't break out the BOC, but did a similar gimmick.The bass player said how the lead singer always plays "Centerfield" at soundchecks, and they always get pissed, so they let him do it last night for the baseball crowd. The singer also said Theo signed his Sox hat, which is good to know he has.

Overall, it was really fun. Made up for the loss in a way. And looking back at it has made me slightly get over tonight's loss. That and the fact that the yanks are really crappy and are going nowhere. Trust me.